Benito Mussolini

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 1883-28 April 1945) was the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 to 1943 (succeeding Luigi Facta and preceding Pietro Badoglio) and Duce of Fascist Italy from 1925 to 1945. A major leader of Fascism, Mussolini was one of the three major leaders of the Axis Powers, alongside Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany and Hideki Tojo of Japan, with whom he fought in World War II. He was killed by his own people in April 1945.

Biography
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was born on 29 July 1883 in Predappio, Forli, in the Kingdom of Italy. Mussolini served in the Royal Italian Army during World War I, and became an editor of the fascist newspaper Avanti! while home. He became the leader of the fascist Blackshirts after the end of the Great War and took power in 1922 after the March on Rome, forcing Prime Minister Luigi Facta to resign. King Vittorio Emmanuele III of Italy invited Mussolini to form his own government, and in 1925 he proclamed himself Il Duce, meaning "The Duke". Mussolini was effectively the dictator of Italy, and used his desires to dictate foreign policy. Keen at re-forming the Roman Empire, he participated in a 1935 war with Abyssinia that resulted in its conquest in 1936, taking over Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somaliland for Italy. He was also able to confirm his power over Italy by making the Fascist Grand Council his parliament and by giving himself full dictatorial powers over Italy. Mussolini poisoned the people's minds through propaganda and also cracked down on the Sicilian Mafia in southern Italy; during the Allied invasion of Italy, mafiosi would fight alongside the American soldiers against the Italians and Germans.

In 1936, Mussolini sent 50,000 Italian troops to intervene in the Spanish Civil War, fighting for the republicans under Francisco Franco, who was a fascist leader. Mussolini joined the Rome-Berlin Axis that year in alliance with Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany (which also included Austria and Czechoslovakia by 1938), and the Italians and Germans developed comradeship during the war in Spain. In 1939 Mussolini conquered the Kingdom of Albania, defeating King Zog I of Albania and creating an Italian province in the region. Mussolini also invaded Greece in 1940 in hopes of taking over the country for Italy, but his invasion failed. In June 1940 he entered Italy into another war: World War II. Italian troops occupied southern France during Hitler's invasion, but they suffered many defeats before they could occupy the region. The Italians also fought the United Kingdom in North Africa and East Africa, and he was successful in driving the British back to Kenya in East Africa and Egypt in North Africa for a short time before a British counteroffensive conquered Italian Africa.

Mussolini's failure in these wars added up when the Allied Powers invaded Italy in July 1943, and on 27 July 1943 Mussolini was arrested by Pietro Badoglio, who became the new Prime Minister. Imprisoned in a hotel in the Apennine Mountains, Mussolini was later freed by German paratroopers under Otto Skorzeny and became the leader of the puppet Salo Republic in northern Italy. Mussolini's Italian Salo forces aided the Wehrmacht in their defense of Italy, but they remained an inexperienced fighting force and much of the Italian Army joined the Co-Belligerent Army of the Allies. Many civilians formed partisan brigades to resist Germany's presence in the Italian countryside and to stop their atrocities, and Mussolini was captured by partisans in April 1945. He was shot dead with his mistress Clara Petacci and the two were hung upside-down in a gas station in Milan. Filth was thrown on their bodies by the people of Italy, who were now free of his tyranny.